September 2011

September 27, 2011

For the third time, linebacker Sean Lee led the Cowboys in tackles. He had eight Monday night against the Redskins. He also led the team in tackles against the Jets with 15 and the 49ers with 13.

Plus, he added his second interception of the season and his second fumble recovery of the season.

“Our young guy, Sean Lee, is playing out of control,” linebacker Bradie James said, unable to hold back his enthusiasm. “We’ve got to keep him. We’ve got to keep the fire lit under him.”

Lee also broke up two passes against the Redskins, and he’s shown sure hands when he gets a chance to catch the ball.

“If they keep throwing me the ball, I'll take it, and I enjoy it,” Lee said. “It’s all of us. The whole team worked. You look at our defensive line tonight, I thought they did a great job against the run. I was playing off them all night because they were holding up offensive linemen, and the secondary did a lot of great things.”

James said the defense is working as a unit right now, with each position doing its part.

“Man, we got the right type of guys on the team, and we got to keep them,” James said. “Everybody has to play unselfish for us to be successful. And that’s really what it’s about, man.”

But perhaps with one name above all others – head coach Jason Garrett.

“It’s a credit to our team, a credit to Jason Garrett, that we get our act together, get back down here and win a ballgame,” Jones said. “And so, I can’t praise Jason Garrett enough for how he’s handling the team. He represents the spirit of the team, and we’re just excited about getting these two wins.”

The Cowboys have needed to rally for both their wins. They came back from 14-0 and 24-14 to defeat the San Francisco 49ers last week. Monday night, they rallied from a 16-9 deficit.

“Certainly, the defense at the end really needed to step up there,” Jones said. “That was obvious. ... I’m really proud of our defense.”

Jones said there are mistakes to be fixed, and he understands how injuries are slowing the Cowboys. But he said he has confidence in Garrett and quarterback Tony Romo to keep the Cowboys on track.

“First of all, you saw Romo at his best, improvising,” Jones said. “And what did he make – two of three of those improvised plays where it looked like we were for sure going to have significant setbacks out there, and he turns them into at least evens or sometime got us a gain out of them? You’ve got an asset when you’ve got Tony Romo out there. His bringing those plays back into some decent field positions, the two or three snaps that he had to field out there, we’ve got to get that fixed – certainly we’ve got enough mistakes to fix here. But we’ve got the man that can do it in Jason Garrett.”

Cowboys placekicker Dan Bailey and running back Felix Jones are among the nominees for player of the week honors in the NFL.

Bailey, who made six field goals in the Cowboys' 18-16 victory against the Washington Redskins on Monday night, is a nominee for the Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Week. He's up against receiver Julio Jones of the Atlanta Falcons, quarterback Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers, receiver Torrey Smith of the Baltimore Ravens and guard Stefan Wisniewski of the Oakland Raiders.

Jones, who rushed for 115 yards on 14 carries against the Redskins, is up for the FedEx Ground NFL Player of the Week award. He had his two longest runs of the year, 29 and 40 yards, in the second half. He also had three catches for 40 yards, accounting for 155 yards for the Cowboys. His competition is running b ack Ryan Matthews of the San Diego Chargers and running back Darren McFadden of the Oakland Raiders.

Here are some notes from Monday night's game as compiled by the Cowboys' PR department:

Tonight’s win improved Dallas’ league record of Monday Night Football wins to 43.

The last nine Cowboys games have been decided by three points or less, which is the longest streak of games with a point differential of three or less in NFL history. The previous long was held by the Raiders (six) from 2004-05.

Tonight’s 18-16 win was the 41st game in which Dallas did not score a touchdown. Of the 41, tonight was just the sixth time Dallas won a game in which they did not cross the goal line. The last time Dallas won without a touchdown was a 9-7 win against Washington (10/15/01).

Dallas Wins – No Touchdowns

Score Opponent (Date)

6-2 vs. Cleveland (12/12/70)

9-3 vs. N.Y. Giants (11/7/76)

21-6 vs. Green Bay (11/18/96)

12-6 vs. New England (12/15/96)

9-7 vs. Washington (10/15/01)

18-16 vs. Washington (9/26/11)

The Dallas Cowboys had three more sacks in the game tonight to give the team 13 on theyear which leads the league through three weeks.

Rookie kicker Dan Bailey was true on all six of his field goal attempts tonight to establish a club rookie single-game record for field goals made. The previous was five held by Roger Ruzek (at the L.A. Rams, 12/21/87) and Richie Cunningham (at Arizona, 9/7/97 and against Philadelphia, 9/15/97).

Bailey’s six made field goals tonight allowed him to become just the third rookie in NFL history (since 1960) to convert six field goals in a single game. The first was Garo Yepremian (Detroit, at Minnesota, 11/13/66) and Jeff Reed (Pittsburgh, at Jacksonville, 12/1/02).

Bailey’s six field goals made were the third-most in a game in club history:

Player FG Opponent (Date)

Chris Boniol 7 vs. Green Bay (11/18/96)

Billy Cundiff 7 at N.Y. Giants (9/15/03)

Dan Bailey 6 vs. Washington (9/26/11)

With David Buehler (groin) sidelined tonight, Bailey also made his debut on kickoffs. He finished the game with seven kickoffs, four that reached the end zone with two touchbacks.

Tony Fiammetta’s 15-yard reception was a career-long.

Felix Jones rushed for 115 yards on 14 carries for an average of 8.2 tonight. It marked Jones’ single-game career high yardage total and his second career 100-yard outing. His average of 8.2 yards-per-carry was also a career-best when rushing more than 10 times.

Jones upped his career rushing yards total to 1,935 to pass Troy Hambrick (1,896) for 14th in team history.

Sean Lee intercepted his second pass of the season, fourth of his career. His two interceptions through three weeks ties Brian Urlacher for the most picks by a league linebacker.

Lee also recovered a fumble to seal the win late in the fourth quarter, his second game of the season with multiple takeaways. He provided the same takeaway stat line (one interception and a fumble recovery in the season opener at the N.Y. Jets (9/11).

Mat McBriar had a long punt of 65 yards, his longest since booting one 65 yards at Indianapolis (12/5/10).

Laurent Robinson had his first catch as a Cowboy tonight. It was a 22-yard pass from Tony Romo in the second quarter.

In failing to throw a touchdown pass tonight; TonyRomo’s streak of consecutive games with a touchdown pass was stopped at 20, which was the second-longest active streak in the league. Drew Brees upped his league-leading streak to 30 games.

Gerald Sensabaugh blocked a field goal attempt in the second quarter tonight. It was his fourth career blocked kick, third field goal and second as a Cowboy.

Anthony Spencer’s fourth quarter sack tonight gave him a sack in his fourth straight game – the longest streak of his career.

DeMarcus Ware’s sack tonight was his sixth straight game with a sack – the third longest streak of his career (10 – 12/16/07-10/12/08 - and 7 – 11/2/08-12/20/08). With sacks in each of the first three games this season, it was the second time in his career he opened theseason with sacks in each of the first three games. The first was in 2008 when he opened the season with at least one sack in each of the first seven games.

Felix Jones delivered his two longest runs of the season Monday night against the Redskins, breathing life into one of the worst running games in the NFL.

Jones peeled off runs of 29 and 40 yards in the second half, the first double-digit runs of the year for the Cowboys, who were 31st in the league at 54.5 yards per game coming in. Jones’ longest run in the first two games was 8 yards.

Jones went over 100 yards for the first time in almost a year, rushing for 115 yards on 14 carries. He ran for 109 yards in Week 4 last year against Tennessee.

Jones had only 69 yards on 26 carries in the first two games. He played Monday's game with a harness to protect the shoulder he dislocated last week in the first quarter against the 49ers.

"It makes a difference," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said of the run game. "We just had to keep banging away. They're a very good defense. They're a very good front. They do a lot of different things to you, so you're going to have some ugly plays. You're going to have some minus plays both in the run game and in the pass game. We had to know that. That's the style of their defense. We had to just keep chipping away. A real tribute to the guys up front, certainly Felix Jones coming into this game with a dislocated shoulder, not getting a lot of work in practice this week and playing the way he played throughout the ball game. He did a hell of a job, and it was one of his best games as a Cowboy."

Anthony Spencer made the sack and forced fumble that won the game for the Cowboys on Monday night.

It’s just the kind of play he expects to be making.

“Any kind of big play, I feel like I need to be making,” he said. “I feel like I’m that type of player. I know I need to make those type of plays. It was just good to make them.”

It was Spencer’s only sack of the game, and it gave him three for the season.

“Spence was awesome,” linebacker Bradie James said. “I was so excited. I mean, I was running on the sideline with him. I felt like I was making a play. And that’s the feeling that you have from the defensive side of the ball, because guys are really making plays all over the place, whatever their role is. Spence stepped up when we needed him, and that was great.”

The Cowboys were going to go for it on fourth-and-7 at the Washington 40-yard line, early in the fourth quarter. They trailed 16-12 and were out of field-goal range.

But they burned a time out and ended up punting.

“We really had every intention of going for it,” coach Jason Garrett said. “We thought this may be an opportunity. We had some plays that we liked that we thought we could get to, and then we banged a time out and decided it was better to punt. ... We said, ‘Let’s punt it, let’s do our best to keep them down there and play the field position game a little bit.’ We had time, and that’s how it turned out.”

The Cowboys got the ball back on their 19 and drove for a 40-yard field goal that cut the lead to 16-15.

Dez Bryant missed last week's game against the 49ers with a deep thigh bruise. On Monday night, he left Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall with a bruised ego.

Bryant had only four catches for 63 yards and no touchdowns, as the Cowboys were kept out of the end zone, but the former Oklahoma State star saved the game. He caught a 30-yard pass from Tony Romo on third-and-21 with 2:08 left. It set up the game-winning field goal.

"They sent everybody," Romo said. "I tried to give ground. It was a good job by Dez continuing to play on. I could see kind of the angle he was taking, and I could see where the corner was. I gave it a little air and let him go run under it, and Dez did a great job of getting the ball and getting us in field-goal position. It obviously was a major play in the game. That goes to the side of guys just keep playing, keep grinding."

The Redskins had a one-point lead and had the Cowboys backed up at the 30-yard line after a bad snap -- Phil Costa's fourth of the game -- cost Dallas11 yards. Washington sent an all-out blitz, but Romo bought time by moving to his right and backward. Bryant, who had been standing at the line of scrimmage, saw Romo's hand gesture to take off. Romo threw off balance from the 15, finding Bryant behind Hall. Hall grabbed Bryant's facemask to bring him down, drawing a 15-yard penalty.

"I was supposed to run some kind of quick route because of the blitz," Bryant said. "D-Hall had good coverage, and I'm just standing there with Tony getting blitzed. I’m thinking that I'm just going to stand there, because I think he needed somebody to dump the ball off to. And Tony tells me [with a hand gesture] to run upfield, so I did it. And next thing you know, I turn around, and I see the ball up in the air. i had to snatch it. I didn’t care if D-Hall was behind me or not. I just had to block him out and snatch it in. Hey, I give all the credit to Tony, and I give the credit to God. Hey, it’s a blessing for this win."

Rookie Dan Bailey might not have even made the Cowboys' roster had Dave Rayner not blown his chance in the exhibition final. Now, after three games, the Cowboys are confident they finally have found their kicker.

Bailey had field goals of 41, 27, 32, 41, 23 and 40 yards. His 40-yarder came with 1:47 remaining. He accounted for every one of the Cowboys' 18 points.

"He has a really, really good demeanor for a kicker, a good demeanor for a football player," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said. "He understands his technique, what he needs to do regardless of the situation, and he goes out and does it. When it doesn’t work out for him, he goes right back and does it again the next time. I thought it was really good example tonight of him just going out, regardless of the circumstance, and doing his job, knocking the ball through the uprights obviously. The field goals were the difference in the ball game for us."

Bailey is 9-for-10 for the season. His only miss was a 21-yarder last week against the 49ers.

The miss, though, was forgotten when the former Oklahoma State star sent home the game-winner Monday night against the rival Redskins.

"I just thought we had to have the points," Bailey said. "It was just one of those situations where you've got to make it. ...When you can string two, three, four kicks together -- it's rare to have that many attempts, but when you string that many together, it kind of gives you the confidence to go out and make it."

The Cowboys have been through five kickers this year, counting Kris Brown, who was cut before training camp.

David Buehler also made the roster as a kickoff specialist, but he was inactive Monday night with a groin injury. That left Bailey to kick off. He had two touchbacks, but of the five returns Brandon Banks had, 23 was the longest. Banks averaged 20 yards a return.

"The field goals were good, but I can definitely improve on the kickoffs," Bailey said.